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Stop Having Fun Guys
alt title(s): Stop Having Fun Guy
Why are all the fun stages red?

“I agree that scrub mentality can be very annoying. But the competitive mentality isn't blameless, and has its share of jerks as well.”
Falcon Pain, this trope's Discussion page.

“No, you can't play with it, you won't enjoy it on as many levels as I do.”
-Professor Frink, The Simpsons, “The PTA Disbands”

The gamer equivalent of the Arrogant Kung Fu Guy. He's a Hard Core gamer, plays in all tournaments, and knows everything about how to play. He knows all the secret moves (even the glitches), the most effective strategies, and the quickest ways to completely destroy his opponent. He's completely “above” the mantra of casual play: He doesn't play just for fun, he plays to win. He's good, and he knows it.

Yep, that's right, he's the exact opposite of the Scrub.

…But just as annoying.

This kind of player is good, but is also extremely arrogant. He's completely intolerant of play styles other than his own. If you challenge his beliefs, he'll automatically call you a noob, a Scrub, or something similar. Anyone who doesn't play like him instantly simply doesn't know as much as he.

Expect him to constantly put down players for using low-tier characters, and comment on gaming videos that no one can play as good as he.

You'll always see this kind of player arguing that the debated Game Breaker is completely and utterly legitimate. After all, it's not about playing, it's about winning, right? Much like the Scrub, the player probably won't be listening to logic or facts. It's either agree or be wrong. Expect this to cause a big annoying (but sometimes amusing) Pro-Scrub Flame War.

Note, this is the kind of player who takes the Tournament Play mentality to an annoying extreme (generally giving other tournament players a bad name), while the Scrub takes the casual mentality to an annoying extreme (generally giving other casual players a bad name.) In the real world, there's room for both, and game companies generally try to put something in their games for both sides; see Player Archetypes for details.

To supplement something on the Scrub page: What ultimately makes the Stop Having Fun Guy undesirable isn't the rulegriping; it is the attitude. What distinguishes the Stop Having Fun Guy from someone who simply wishes to play the game to win is that the Stop Having Fun Guy believes that his way is the effective way to play the game.

The more sensible people in the middle generally seem to get along well, possibly because they have common sense (it's not common enough.)

See also: Scrub, Serious Business, Fan Dumb, and especially Munchkins, who are the larval form of this.

Contrast Fan Haters.
Examples:

Meta
  • The Stop Having Fun Guy problem has gotten so bad for this troper, she has stopped playing games where you actually have to talk with other people entirely, and she only roleplays with her close friends. If she plays a game where you have to, she tries to avoid conversation and just be as efficient as possible for her teammates while having as much fun as she can. If she spots a Stop Having Fun Guy, she kills him off while he rants. She finds it more efficient than ranting back, since that'd make her get killed. Although she sometimes worries that, in the times that she does rant back, she's being a Stop Having Fun Guy about having fun.
  • Fictional example: Vork in The Guild. “Killing and looting always gets in the way of guild business!”
  • Alex Kierkegaard is notoriously anti-fun. Infact, he actually banned someone on his forum for stating that said user played games for fun instead of score.
    • A quibble, after reading the thread in question. He actually banned someone for suggesting that playing for score was intrinsically non-equivalent to playing for fun. Still taking his hobby as Serious Business at its finest, though.
  • Despite its points about having fun by playing this way, and although the book later advocates mixing it up a bit and playing for fun too, fun by playing to win; the way it describes scrubs actually puts the Stop Having Fun Guys man in the same category-by creating arbitrary and confining rules on gameplay. Admittedly the Stop Having Fun Guy knows all the words and doesn't have to resort to calling every tactic cheap to get his whiny, petulant point across, but he's still a scrub according to the article.
  • This is by no means confined to games. People take toys too seriously sometimes too. (specially Transformers fans, for a good reason)
    • Shortpacked! frequently mocks these people.
    • The attitude is depressingly common regardless of genre. A large number of rants about so-called “badfic” fanfiction. Seriously, a multi-paragraph, foaming-at-the-mouth RAGE!post over a few typos? Or an uncommon pairing? Sadly, I'm not exaggerating. Some people really need to get out more.
  • If you are having trouble in a certain part of a game and you seek help on a gaming forum, don't be surprised if you find at least one guy who will belittle you for “sucking” or even outright call you a Scrub. Basically, it's your fault for not being as skilled as they are.
    • If you want a good example of this, go to the Mario Kart Wii board on Game FA Qs and complain about falling off Rainbow Road or how the computer cheats with items. At least half of the replies will fall under something like “suck less.”
  • This blog post is a two-page essay that literally denounces the very idea of having fun as “an exercise in self-nullification.” The gist of the post is that if you're playing a game and you're having fun, you are doing it wrong.

Videogames

Fighter
  • A special mention must be given to those who play Super Smash Bros. As a Mascot Fighter, the game revels in chaos and unpredictability. Items spawn all over the place, the very shape of the stage can change, and some areas of some stages can even hurt you. Naturally, many of the type of gamers described here want all of this to go out of the window in Tournament Play. For example, in Melee, rather than playing in the labyrinthine “Temple,” or the frequently shifting “Pokémon Stadium” (both of which incidentally returning in Brawl,) the type of gamer described here plays only in the static “Battlefield,” or the completely featureless “Final Destination,” with no items, effectively bringing the game more in line with conventional fighters like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The sheer number of options available (and passed over by this type of player) really polarizes the series' fandom. Especially hilarious given the somewhat shifting nature of tourney play in the first place (after all, it's not officially decreed by Nintendo itself, but by those who organize them). Not really a problem, to each his own right? The problem comes from the fact that the Smash Community has the most net percent SHFG of possibly any game with an active community. You can't go into any Smash discussion without someone bringing up how non-tournament gaming is inferior, childish and automatically proves that the player isn't as good as the tournament players. To them, anyone who doesn't play like them only care about some Flanderized notion of “playing-for-fun” and don't play the game like it's “supposed to/properly/more effectively played”. Once again, the people in the middle with sense don't really participate in such discussions much.
    • These comics might explain this◊ type◊ of player◊ better.
    • And here's a drawing which neatly encapsulates both kinds of SSB playing style◊.
    • Melee had people argue over the use of C-stick! Some believed that anyone who used the C-stick to use a smash attack was a scrub or a n00b, just because it was easier to do. Coincidentally, this argument only sprung up after a Nintendo Power article asserted that there was a major debate as to the validity of using the C-Stick.
    • And then you have people who won't accept Brawl, period.
    • A quick explanation of the picture above: the stages in red are generally banned in tournaments. The stages in yellow are only available after the first match of a best 2/3 set or by player agreement. The stages in green, the ones you can count on your fingers, are set to random select for the first round. For the two that are two-tone, they're banned in team play since they lag too much with 4 players at once.
  • In Street Fighter, you'll have those who sneer at players who chose Ryu And Ken, because Akuma (who is banned in most tournaments) is “So much better.”
    • Street Fighter III has its own version of this guy. You know, the one who shows off his elite ability to parry anything and scoffs at anyone who comes at them with nothing less. Either that, or they just pick Chun-Li and bore you to death.
    • Ah, speaking of Street Fighter, several years back a tournament-level player by the moniker of Sirlin wrote an article called “Playing To Win,” the upshot of which is, if you're not playing a game at a cut-throat competitive level, you're not worthy to talk about it or venture an opinion on it. It has a few thought provoking points, but the arrogance of the piece kind of eats away at that. Later on he wrote a longer multi-chapter version which is slightly more balanced, but still comes out as “Don't complain if your fun is being ruined, that's the way it's supposed to be.”
      • Note: One of Sirlin's followups (and the book he wrote) also post an inversion. “If you're too serious, you'll be too stubborn to try any new winning tactics.” Heck, he once beat the supposedly “best Chun-Li player” in an Alpha 2 tournament by picking an underrated character and performing a crouching jab for 60 seconds.
  • And in Marvel Vs Capcom 2, the guy who only uses Cable, Storm and Sentinel (and maybe swaps one of them out for Spider-Man or Wolverine)? That's him.
    • Don't forget Magneto. He, Cable, Sentinel, and Storm were so horribly broken that they were given the Fan Nickname “the Four Gods.” This troper once made the mistake of picking Ryu, Spider-Man), and Felicia in an arcade match once. The opponent's Magneto single-handedly decimated all three of this troper's characters with infinite combos before he could land a single hit.
      • There are also the characters that tend to never show up except as assist characters, but kill the fun for new players just as much: Cyclops, Captain Commando and Psylocke, whose dominating assist attacks make up for their mediocrity as point characters.
  • Pretty much any fighting game that has characters with a move that can be used over and over again, such as Chun Li's Lightning Kick or Pit's arrows. When it comes to spamming moves, they're either cheap and take no skill or they are a part of the game and it is your fault if you get caught in the spammed attacks.
    • In a game where SINGLE FRAMES OF ANIMATION matter, lag in an online game is murder. Soul Calibur 4 is guilty of this, notably Sophitia/Amy's speed, where having a lagging connection basically means “put down the controller and go get a soda to make yourself feel better.” The “pros” on forums will tell you to quit whining and sidestep or “learn to block,” but when the lag is so bad your character doesn't respond at all to your frantic mashing of the G button, well…
      • Hold G to block.
  • Guilty Gear fans will often scoff at you for not knowing basic blockstrings and combos, even though many of what they term “basic” require a fair amount of practice (ideally on a home system) to get down pat.
    • To be fair, Guilty Gear is a lot milder case than the rest. While it is true in order to be taken seriously you will have to know combos, this troper has found that many a guilty gear player will gladly come down your level and try to win with shenanigans. In addition, the game is much more balanced than most fighters, to the point that choosing a bottom tier character will be met with a, “Huh? Don't see many people use him.” Rather than, “Don't you know he sucks?! Why would you choose such a worthless character?” It has also been this troper's experience that the ones who are physical embodiments of stop having fun guys are not very good at this game anyway.
  • Funnily enough, different groups of Stop Having Fun Guys can turn on each other. For example, fans of Soul Calibur or something similar may put down Super Smash Bros fans by saying the game is not a true fighting game compared to their hardcore and serious fighting game. This in turn leads to the Smash fans arguing how Super Smash Bros has just as much depth as the other fighting games. Mix in a Troll or two and just watch the show.
    • This troper recalls both simultaniously ending and starting two seperate arguments on the “smash bros vs every other fighting game” topic by claiming that Smash Bros was so different it was a genre of its own. Straight afterwards, the smash fans split on whether or not smash bros was a fighting game or not. *rolls eyes*

Role Playing Game
  • Pokemon also suffers from this. People who will only play certain Pokémon (with certain movesets, almost all of which rely on some form on “Hidden Power”), and will aggressively initiate Hot Skitty On Wailord Action for even the most minute of stat gains. There are even players who will go through all the stress of capturing a Legendary and then start the whole process over again if the character's stats aren't to their liking.
    • The freeware game Netbattle lets people create Pokemon teams with any movesets and optimized stats, then battle their customized teams online. If you use a moveset that isn't up to the Stop Having Fun Guys' standards, even if you're not playing against them, you will be told how much your team sucks. If you use a one-hit KO move like Sheer Cold, you will be shunned and scoffed at for relying on a pure luck/n00b tactic. Some people even end the match prematurely if you use said moves or the moves actually hit (they only work 30% of the time, hence the huge luck). Players even go so far as to outright ban items like Quick Claw, because it upsets the “balance.”
    • This troper has one rule whenever they agree to a Pokémon battle: No legendaries. The opponent almost always breaks the rule and still winds up getting their ass kicked. High five.
      • This troper used this “quit in disgust” thing to his advantage by putting Magikarp on his team.
  • In Final Fantasy XI, you have meleeburn elitists — players who refuse to get merit points (a form of Level Grinding that involves no actual new levels, which can only be done by characters at maximum level) any other way than in a party with four top-tier DPSers with ninja support jobs (mostly to access the game's most powerful defensive ability), a bard assigned to fetch the enemies, and a red mage who does nothing but heal and Haste, while fighting either Heraldic Imps or Greater Colibri. These tactics fall apart if you try to fight anything stronger, and many find them monotonous compared to the traditional party style. The only real challenge to it lies in keeping up with the rapid pace, and that's only a challenge for the red mage and the bard. Unfortunately, meleeburns are also very effective at raking in merit points, so it's currently nearly impossible to find someone at the top who's not a meleeburn elitist, let alone enough to make a party with. Even though half the jobs in the game don't fit or fit well into a meleeburn, with almost enough variety to make a full traditional party out of.
    • The ironic thing here is that there's actually two tiers to this. There are the “weak” people that have to rely on Spongilla Flies/Heraldic Imps, Greater Colibris, or Decorative Weapons because of their relatively lower level and lack of truly dangerous attacks. But if the team is “strong,” it can instead choose to do the more dangerous Mamool Jas or Aw'aerns for significantly better experience per kill. “Strong teams” can still do the former options, but “weak teams” will just end up wiping if they try the latter options.
    • Let's not even get started on manaburning Black Mages. Granted, manaburning is merely a reaction to the meleeburning which is increasingly reaching into lower and lower levels, even the mid-20s now see meleeburn parties. With traditional parties that hinged upon precicely executed skillchains and magic bursts a thing of the past which hardened FFXI vets will speak of as like they were Atlantis or Lemuria, Black Mages have a tough time finding a party. Thus manaburning has become the relatively acceptable way to level your BLM from nearly level 21 to 75.
  • You're not allowed to run from a battle in a JRPG. Ever. It doesn't matter whether the enemy's kicking your ass hard and it's been hours since you used a save point, you're in a real-life hurry to get to a save point, or the enemy is so weak that there's no point in fighting it for what little spoils you'll gain. If you run from battle, you are a complete RPG Scrub who is on the same level as child molesters and people who talk in the theater.
    • Not to mention that most JRP Gs have the “best party” that everyone uses, and everyone assumes you use. All other potential party members are worthless. At least in this troper's experience, anyway.
    • And then there are the WRPG purists, who insist that JRPGs are “for weeaboo faggots who only watch animu” and constantly belittle anyone who plays them.
    • Some RP Gs actually give you prizes for having not run from any battle, probably inspiring this problem.
      • Conversely, Kingdom Of Loathing gives you a trophy for running away from 100 battles in a row.

Racing Game
  • Mario Kart DS has a great variety of tracks to choose from. But if you go onto the Wi-Fi, guess which one everyone votes for? Figure-Eight. The reason is because that's the track ”snaking,” which lets you run the entire track at a boost, works best on. Baby Park, Yoshi Circuit, and Sky Garden are also popular for the more accomplished snaker.
    • Mario Kart Wii also suffers from course spamming; most pro players will pick nothing but Rainbow Road since it's usually the hardest track in the game and has no course gimmicks. People who spam this track try to justify it by saying it helps “weed out the n00bs” or to counter people who spam easy tracks like Luigi Circuit.
    • Naturally, mentioning snaking on Mario Kart forums is prime Flame Bait.
    • Not only that, but mention about how bikes are better than karts in Mario Kart Wii because of wheelies and you're bound to be flamed by the kart purists simply because you're using a “Game Breaker” or using a bike in a kart game.
    • Speaking of Mario Kart Wii, several players recently found a glitch on a track that lets them finish 3 laps within seconds. If this is done online, then everyone else who didn't use the exploit will won't even know what just happened until the hidden “end race in 30 seconds when leader finishes” timer kicks in. While this is an obvious Game Breaker, many pro players who use this exploit say it is fair to use while others disagree. Cue Flame War. While Nintendo has kept taking down the Time Trial records made with the exploit, people still continue to do it anyway. Players that approve such a glitch try to justify it by saying “If anyone can pull it off, they deserve to win.”
      • One of the major complaints about Mario Kart Wii is sheer amount of items being used at once during a race, making it hard to stay in the lead. This has caused many pro players to shun and put down the complainers as Scrubs, claiming it's their fault for not being able to stay ahead.
      • And while we are on the Wii version, some people actually believe that a true player doesn't resort to using Auto drifting because it's too easy to do, even though Auto drift makes the player unable to hop or use mini turbos.
      • The Wii version also has a “tier” list, showing every character who is ranked based on how big of a stat bonus they get. Most pros only use Daisy or Funky Kong since they have more speed than others in their own weight class. If you try to argue about how a trivial stat boost won't matter in a race due to the randomness of the items, they'll just scoff at you.
      • Some pro players also take VR points too seriously. If anyone doesn't have 9000 points or more, they will refuse to play against them in an arranged match.
      • *coughcoughover9000cough*
    • The snaking debate flamewar was at one point also prevalent among F-Zero GX players; in fact, one major F-Zero fansite, which had an open ranking ladder in which anything goes and a “non-snaking” ladder changed the latter to the “Max Speed” ladder to ensure that non-snakers could have fair competition. (Snaking is impossible to do on a machine with the speed setting turned to 100%.)
  • Similarly, people who dismiss realistic racing sims like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport by scoffing that such games bore them because “I can drive a car in real life.” They might have a point, if they own a Ferrari and their route to work somehow goes through the Nurburgring.
    • And of course, there's the reverse, where realistic racer fans say that games such as Mario Kart require no skill, because “you can just launch out a shell and win.”
    • This troper was once flamed for being “obsessed” with a particular racing game, with the flamer baselessly saying that this troper “doesn't know anything about actual driving;” never mind that this troper, at the time, had had his (real-life) driver's license for seven months.
    • Some car magazine (maybe Top Gear or Autosport) had a 'For and Against' argument for racing games. Against was a motoring journalist (no, it wasn't Clarkson) scoffing that games weren't anything like the real thing. The 'For' guy pointed out that most people aren't payed to road test Lamborghinis and have to deal with real world problems like money, petrol and free time.
  • Nearly every two-player race in Initial D: Arcade Stage is played with the “boost“ feature turned off, almost as if it's required by law.
    • It is to eliminate all handicaps, and it will always be on the hardest course also.
  • This troper recalls an experience in Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune in which he raced several 3/4-player battles, all of which took place on the mountainous, technical Hakone pass. All of these matches were boost off, and as a result the string of battles got repetitive and not very fun at all, and most of the time he came in third or fourth place. While he could've refused to do a boost-off battle to change things up a bit, he was under pressure from the other players to do a boost-off race.

Rhythm Game
  • Honorable Mention goes to the various “real musicians” who tell players of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band that they should stop playing video games and learn a real instrument. Most of the time, however, these people fail to realize that these games do not just emulate playing an instrument, but the entire rock star lifestyle, which would normally be extremely improbable to obtain in real life regardless of how well one can play a real guitar. This xkcd strip is the Trope Namer.
  • Using the safety bar on a Dance Dance Revolution machine is a matter of debate. Some say it's legitimate, that it's nowhere near hacking the game so you get a Perfect on every step, while others say that using the bar to beat That One Boss with a perfect score is less of an accomplishment than barely passing a beginner-level song without it.
    • There are some players (this Troper included) who began playing DDR in console form, beginning with 1st to 3rd Mix. No speed mods, no safety bar. Obviously, this leads to them looking down on those players who hold onto the safety bar all game long (even calling them “strippers,” by some stretch of the imagination).
    • Similarly, using Hyper Speed in Guitar Hero is said to be a form of cheating by some players, even though in other music games (such as Beatmania IIDX and Pump It Up), players use speed multipliers without question. Some players will go as far as to say that no matter how difficult a song is, beating it doesn't count if you use Hyper Speed, never mind that Hyper Speed is the only “cheat” under which scores can be saved and that the Guitar Hero ranking site Score Hero accepts scores achieved with Hyper Speed, that the same is true for the official leaderboards and many other competitions and events, that pretty much every single last Expert player uses it, and that Guitar Hero spiritual successor Rock Band has significantly increased the scroll speed on Expert precisely because of how useful is hyperspeed in making note charts more readable. Also, Rock Band 2 is to have further hyperspeed options available outside of cheats.
    • Also, it doesnt help when most of them design songs to be mostly on heavy. Some of us just don't got the endurance or reflex to pull is it off
    • One can find one or more playthroughs of Guitar Hero II on You Tube which list in the title “no cheats” by which it is explained further that Star Power is never deployed. Line up on either side of this debate as you please.
      • Star Power triples the rate at which your Rock Meter recovers. To some Rhythm Game purists, it's rather hypocritical that a modifier that spreads out and speeds up notes while doing nothing else is called cheating, while a powerup that allows you to easily get through the most difficult of songs without as much effort isn't.
      • From people who have never played a Guitar Hero game ever, maybe. Building up the Star Power gauge essentially requires a full combo through certain sections of the song. (Without a full combo, you still build up some power, but it would take a while to get to Star Power levels.) Nobody in their right minds would claim that this qualifies as "easily getting through the most difficult of songs."
      • Star Power also doubles your multiplier, so not using Star Power basically makes it impossible to get a good score. Seriously, to this troper, not using Star Power is like playing Super Mario Brothers without using the B button, due to the fact that it's “cheap.”
      • Except, some people play for accuracy rather than points.
    • Stepmania in relation to this is notorious for having most of the producers making only heavy/challenge stepfiles. This troper had a good reason to stop playing benami games due to the sheer impossibility of it all.
    • Pump It Up (Korea's dancing game counterpart) settles the bar issue by having all official tournaments forbid the use of the bar during speed (accuracy) competitions. Most local tournaments follow suit.
  • You're not allowed to play pop'n music with the Beat-Pop modifier. After all, if you want gray and blue notes so badly, why not just play beatmania IIDX?

Massively Multiplayer Online Game
  • City Of Heroes (and its counterpart game, City of Villains) have a couple archetype combinations and maps that get used extensively by the twink crowd. In City of Heroes, it's Fire/Kinetics Controllers that are viewed as the “most powerful”, with two maps that get used. Both are outdoors in an urban setting and have all the enemy groups in relatively straight lines, with the key difference between them being either Family or Demons as the enemy type. City of Villains is a bit more complex due to the lack of a completely self-sufficient, overpowering archetype combination, but the popular choice is to pair an (area of effect emphasis)/Stone Armor Brute and a (area of effect emphasis)/Kinetics Corruptor (popular combinations are Super Strength/Stone Armor and Fire Blast/Kinetics). The map of choice is “Battle For Television,” an outdoor urban map that mixes Family and Nemesis. They will then set up teams (usually capped to 6 out of the 8 possible to prevent Boss level spawns) and “farm” it, just clear the map without completing the objectives, reset the map, and repeat. While this is a very effective way to gain money, it is extremely monotonous and many of the people that set these up are also completely passionless and very strict about the conduct of the “team fillers,” with the most extreme of them not even letting them on the map to share the rewards (though even these ones usually tell you ahead of time, and let you leave once all the enemies on the map are spawned). Then there are the people that refuse to do anything but this type of team...
    • This section of the playerbase also relentlessly pursues and abuses other exploits for risk-free experience.
    • Note that, unlike several of the games detailed here, these players aren't in the majority among CoH and CoV's playerbase. It's easy to find and fill teams that aren't playing this way.
      • And despite them being a minority, they're the reason the experience and money rewards from the Family villain group was recently reduced. And why the outdoor missions with Warwolves got time limits. And why Rikti Comm Officer portals no longer give experience. And why creatures spawned from any portals at all do not give experience. And why the Welcome to Vanguard arc no longer gives experience. And why...
    • There are also milder examples; far too many 'serious' players will never team with a Storm Summoner or Trick Archer by choice, and generally avoids Kheldians like the plague.
    • And then there's the Katie Hannon Task Force. It's a short, fun task force; because it's short and because the rewards are the same as for the longer task forces, it's very commonly run, to the point where players have the precise mechanics of how to complete it quickly down to a science. The Imperious TF is looking like it's headed that way as well. There's also “Speeden,” which has been completed in under 5 minutes.
      • These are now being devalued by the Merits system, and there is predictable rioting.
    • And now that we have the Invention system implemented, expect any player that doesn't use and abuse it to twink out his character to ridiculous levels to be mocked mercilessly by the usual suspects.
  • One of the game mechanics introduced during the development of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates was the blockade system, in which multiple flags of pirates could take part in a large-scale naval battle/capture the flag game to earn the right to colonize and build property on various islands. Eventually, one player came up with an unpopular strategy to wage war for these islands, consisting of raising enough money to wage multiple wars, scheduling them so they took part in the early morning, not showing up to battle, and repeating this every week. The defending army couldn't refuse to show up; if he or his crew showed up and they didn't, it counted as a win on his side, giving him a chance to take the island. So the defending army showed up every week and did nothing but keep the ships afloat for several hours. In the end, many agreed that keeping the island was turning into a second job and was no longer fun, and a number of players got fed up with the game and quit. The responsible pirate called this “tactics.” And although early-morning assaults is in fact a valid tactic in real warfare, it fails to factor in the fact that this is a game, and as such the fun factor is as much a part, if not more so, than victory.
    • Said pirate was ultimately given a lifetime ban.
  • This is the kind of player that can make World Of Warcraft very unpleasant. Alas, they abound, especially on open world PvP servers.
    • This comic shows the only reasonable method of dealing with such.
  • If you aren't willing to put up with the restrictions and are willing to invest a lot of time into it, forget about two things in World Of Warcraft:
    • Raids (groups of up to 40 people), the pinnacle of Pv E gameplay. Okay, the entry level is easy enough for less organized people, but good luck getting past that. This kind of gameplay doesn't exactly require a lot of skill from the individual, but there is absolutely no room for experimental setups.
    • Arena, a small scale Deathmatch and the pinnacle of Pv P gameplay. Once again, if you want to get anywhere, you need a specific group setup, a solid tactic based on that and good communication during the matches (voicechat). If you play for fun, you quickly fall down the ladder and are unable to get most of the rewards available for this type of gameplay.
      • And there is a very vocal group of players who believe you don't deserve any sort of advancement if you don't participate in either of these aspects. Never mind the fact that, as mentioned, raids don't necessarily require skill, and that neither are particularly fun at their upper tiers primarily due to the high volume of these people at that level.
  • Instant-Message Roleplay has its own breed of the Stop Having Fun Guy. It's the type that demands a great number of Instant Message boxes be filled per post (this troper has seen one person demand eight every time), and will throw a fit if you do anything under the limit. Most people would be hard-pressed to stretch a single action into three. How they manage to find people to play with is anyone's guess.
  • Prepared to be cut down if you are a baby class in Ragnarok Online

First Person Shooter
  • Anybody who played the game Battlefield 2 back in its heyday will certainly remember three words: Strike At Karkand. It was especially notable as many players were adamant it was the “most fair” or “most even” stage because it was mainly infantry combat, leading to 75% of the game servers playing the map exclusively... despite the fact that the entire Battlefield series is based on vehicle combat. The fan uproar for the map got to the point that EA released a patch that allowed players to disable vehicles from all maps, and also disable the Commander mode, which allowed players to call in artillery strikes and vehicle drops.
    • Battlefield 2 has alot of “Pro” gamers, in name only, since most of them at best, may receive some minor sponsorship to run their clan website, forum and server. Anyway, most of these guys are happy to use (or used) exploits like C4 throwing, leading to ludicrous “pro” matches early in the game life which comprised of entire teams taking the special ops kit and only using c4, or plane camping or the grenade launcher jumping exploit (jump in the air, then fire at feet, kills anyone near you but not yourself), or prone jumping/dolphin diving (which made you a near impossible target to hit, but still gave the player perfect accuracy) and often using keyboard macros to acheive these. These same players will then enter a public server and flame anyone who uses whatever the latest “fail weapons” to kill them, ostensibly because it's “lame” or “cheap” or “unskilled.” These “fail” weapons have included the G36e, the Ak 74, the M95 Sniper, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, c4, claymores, the DAO Auto-Shotgun and any vehicle that kills them. So yeah.
    • This continued in Battlefield 2142. Though there was a more even balance between wide open vehicle maps and infantry close combat maps throughout the game, many servers tended towards infantry only with the “big three” maps (Cerbere Landing, Belgrade and Camp Gibraltar), most commonly the “big one” (Gibraltar), with some going so far as to have auto-kick scripts to prevent people using the limited selection of vehicle still included in these maps before the options to fully disable them were introduced (again) through patches.
    • Don't even mention a majority of what Fall of Berlin maps are. Basically most of them are knife/pistol servers which are not only illegal but also grinds on this troper's nerves as he wants a good old infantry fight at Berlin that doesn't degrade to a knife duel.
    • Even though a recent patch doubled the number of gunships, many matches devolve into teamkill fests when some greedy wannabe pilot doesn't get one and starts killing everyone at the airfield. The match is lost the moment someone retaliates, because no team of players is good enough to counter the tickets wasted by the teamkillers. A major problem on maps where only admins are allowed to kick, and none of them are logged on.
    • One particularly nasty tactic is for two players to work on opposite teams. They will pad their stats by killing and reviving a player continuously (who can only then leave the game since the option to suicide only shows up when alive). They can also sabotage one of the Titan carriers by destroying the consoles or core before the enemy is able to board—a “friendly” recon has access to the interior, allowing him to detpack the components and hand over the trigger to his “enemy” conspirator.
  • Halo 2. They're the ones that start crying when you suggest playing Swords or Rockets or anything that isn't a team game. Or when you suggest playing on Beaver Creek. They'll generally only play Capture the Flag, on Blood Gulch, with Heavy Weapons.
  • If you play random people online in Metroid Prime: Hunters, you're very likely to find players who use no one but Trace, since he can become invisible when idle and is using the sniping weapon, the Imperalist. Since doing a head shot with this weapon is a one-hit kill naturally, players will try to avoid this by going into alt form (example: Samus' Morph Ball) to cover their heads and move faster. Naturally, this kind of player will call that “a n00b tactic”. Pros and non-pros also debate on whether or not glitching yourself into a wall in Combat Hall so you can avoid being seen and hit while still firing at other people is legitimate.
  • If you've ever played Counter-Strike, you'll notice a community-wide set of rules which seek to make the game as bland and untactical as possible. De_Dust 24/7, rushes are the only tactics possible, the AUP is a noob weapon, and may God help you if you even think of bringing a shield.
  • While it's not as extreme as the other examples, many Call Of Duty 4 players believe that using the Juggernaut perk (which gives you extra health) is akin to cheating, and will insult anyone who uses it.
    • Which this troper finds it ironic since the Juggernaut is essentially the anti-thesis to the Stopping Power perk, which increases bullet damage and is very popular. The statistical increase causes the two to cancel out if the opponents shoot at each other with the same weapon at the exact same time and all the shots hit.
    • Also, to a lesser extent, the grenade launcher (aka “n00b tube”).
    • Last Stand perk might count as well.
  • Many Team Fortress 2 servers only play one map over and over again (2Fort and Dustbowl being the most popular). Apparently variety gets into the way of playing it “right,” nevermind that 2Fort tends to degrade to a huge stalemate with sniper duels in the middle and sentry farms in the intelligence rooms.
    • “Degrade” implies that it starts out otherwise.
    • Pah, this troper would kill for more games on 2fort, I know Gold Rush by instinct at this point.
    • Balance will never exist in TF 2 as long as the SHF Gs have their way. The semi-recent addition of unlockable weapons caused the SHF Gs to immediately decide which alternative for each weapon is “good” and which one is “bad” without considering the advantages and disadvantages of both. This, of course, means that Valve's apparent intention to add more variety to the game has been replaced with their very own G-Man's “illusion of free choice,” as everyone uses and is expected to use the same combination of weapons with their characters to the point that it is basically mandatory. For example, everyone will assume your Medic uses Blutsauger/Medigun/Übersaw if you don't specifically state you use something else, in which case they'll probably tell you you're using the wrong weapons. This, of course, leads to massive flame wars between the SHF Gs and the people trying to explain that the “bad” weapon has it's uses too.
      • This troper has noticed that the “bad” weapon is usually the one that can be devastating in certain situations, but is mediocre or below-average otherwise. In other words, it requires a bit of skill and thought to use correctly, as opposed to the “good” alternative, which is good in most situations but not terribly destructive in any of them. This was especially bad when the Pyro recieved an air-blast ability on his standard Flamethrower and an alternative weapon, the Backburner, that had no air blast but gave the Pyro 100% critical hits from behind as well as an extra 50 HP (giving him more health than a Soldier). Needless to say, people preferred the 50 HP you didn't even have to think about over the incredibly useful ability that merely required a slight sense of timing and the push of a different button. The 50 HP was eventually removed, which resulted in the standard flamer becoming the correct choice, although the Backburner is unique in that it seems to be acknowledged as an acceptable, balanced alternative that a sizable portion of the TF 2 community still use. I guess SHF Gs have a bit of trouble letting go of what was once theirs.
      • With the Heavy update, expect to get ripped into by EVERYBODY for using Natascha. Slowing enemies down has its utilities, but the lesser damage it deals means that every failure of yours WILL be a personal failure, and not your teammates falling short of what was expected of them. Unusually, someone in the Steam forums spaded for some data and found out that Natascha in fact did FOURTY percent less damage, not the 25 percent advertized. He then went on to point out that the slow's effect was too negligable to compensate for the damage loss against fleeing opponents (what it is ostensibly useful against, though usually deals an extremely marginal amount less damage to.) So he brings up that Natascha needs a buff badly, otherwise it simply won't be FUN to use. Cue roughly fourty different posters simultaneously bursting forth from the woodwork to tear him apart for not caring about fun. The terms “tourneyfag” and “SHF G” were used in equal measure. Eventually, he was banned and the thread locked.
      • It all depends on the people you have on your servers generally. The Pyro's Shotgun has become popular again due to the fact it'll work against other Pyros, The Sandvich and the Shotgun for the Heavy is definitely a personal choice, and you generally get half of the medics using the Medigun and Half using the Kritskrieg. Same thing with the Backburner/Flamethrower as well. The TF 2 community seems to calm down pretty well if you leave it long enough.
      • Since the Kritzkrieg's buff in charge rate, this troper has seen at least one person claim the standard Medigun is the worthless one now, while you still get one or two people in a match every so often telling you to put the Kritz away. In other words, the Mediguns have balanced out into two camps that claim the other is worthless, which is kind of funny when you think about it.
  • At one point, anyone saying they liked Bioshock was told that it's just System Shock, and therefore isn't any fun whatsoever and not worth playing, and anyone who said they like it was thus an idiot. No, it didn't matter if you never played System Shock before.
    • This logic completely ignores the fact that System Shock was awesome, and more System Shock is therefore more awesome.
    • Never mind if your computer is PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE OF PLAYING SYSTEM SHOCK! By the way, I will commit murder for how to properly emulate Windows 98…
      • You don't wanna go there.I went there when I suddenly found myself in the need to play Dungeon Keeper.
      • Jesus Christ on the Pogo Stick of The Lord Almighty, just pop open the properties for the executable and turn on compatibility, exactly like Windows' built-in help says. RTFM people, details here.
  • In Rainbow Six Vegas online, you will only ever play the Casino map. It will have quadruple the time limit for getting the intel out, because that means you get 4 times the experience. Therefore, anybody who's an attacker who, you know, completes the mission and bring the briefcase to the extration point, instead of the inevitable stalemate of boredom, will get banned next round.
    • Wanna make 'em howl before you get kicked? Make sure you have the intel in the last few seconds and run away from the score point.
  • If you're playing Doom deathmatches, don't expect anyone to play on any level except DWANGO5.WAD MAP01. Ever.

Third Person Shooter
  • Expect to be called a noob for doing... just about anything outside of using the advanced sword cancel techniques with shotguns in the online game GunZ the Duel. Even using the most accurate rifle in the game, you'll be doing nothing but spraying wildly... even after you nail an opponent 14 times in the chest. Using a dagger to knock someone down and shooting them while they're on the ground because they didn't jump out of it? You're being a dagger noob.
  • S4 League players that use the Cannonade, Counter Sword, or Semi Rifle are often called noobs, since these are safer or easier to aim but less damaging versions of the Rail Gun, Plasma Sword, or Gauss Rifle. They're also powerful tools in their own way — the Counter Sword is usually shunned by Scrubs as being overpowered. The Counter Sword and Rail Gun tend to also be considered unacceptable weapons on the Tunnel v1 map, where they are fun but not a good way to score touchdowns.
    • And then there are the 'rawr guns r 4 noobs' players, that insult and abuse anyone who uses anything but melee weaponry ( 2 out of some 20 or so weapons ), the 'LAGGER!' haters, who abuse anyone who tries to play with a poor connection because the game attempts (alebit a bit clumsily) to protect any poor sod whose connection can't give them a perfect uplink. For people defying the games basic premise, these guys (perhaps due to their stupidity) can be unbelievably vicious.
      • It doesn't help that the game makes “laggers” invincible (or at least impossible to kill), but does not prevent them from capturing flags or continuing to rack up kills while they are unstoppable.
  • I'm sure you're all tired of shooter examples by now, but Gears of War deserves special mention in that the SHF Gs of the community believe absolutely everything (that kills them) is cheap. The only thing they deem acceptable to use is the shotgun, but if they get killed with that, it's because of host advantage. These are, of course, the same people who justify glitches like weapon sliding (being able to move as you pick up a weapon) as being more realistic. Because, as we all know, gun-wielding subterranean monsters don't stop to pick up weapons in real life. Not that anyone plays on Locust anyway...
    • During a match of Gears, this troper heard someone say these exact words. “I don't even like this game. I just play it 'cause I'm good at it.” This troper facepalmed.
    • This troper found he couldn't kill anyone by shooting at them (and getting mocked for this), so he chainsawed them all and was promptly screeched at.
  • Star Wars Battlefront II added in some new game types in addition to regular conquest, including Capture the Flag. But because some players are more obsessed with increasing their kill count to get ahead on the leaderboard, they will actually demand that others do not capture the flag so as to not interfere with their battling. Which kind of makes you wonder why they join up on, or even create CTF servers in the first place...
    • Battlefront II also has a game mode, available on one map only, that is essentially all the Jedi vs all the Sith. Despite the circumstances perhaps implying that this mode was added as a fun diversion from the main game, it is well known among the Battlefront II community that “Heroes vs Villains is serious business.” Most heroes games are “no force” or no right click, essentially turning it into a game of who can click first when the 3D models intersect.
      • Additionally, after the discovery of centerblock, a phenomenon/glitch where using the Jedi's block while facing the center of the map caused it to be slightly stronger than when facing otherwise, most SHF Gs now prefer to ban blocking, as well.
    • While this troper is making edits regarding Team Fortress 2 to this page, he'd like to point out that TF 2 (and presumably anything with a kill counter and leaderboards) is full of people who never make an effort to help their team win by capturing the intel, capturing a point, or pushing the Payload cart. Instead they just focus on getting kills, and probably step on the point just in time for the capture to get points for that, too. This troper has often joked that people would rather come in first place on the losing team than second place on the winning team.
      • Mario Kart Wii for battle mode online falls under this as well. Since the BR points you gain or lose depend on how many points you have instead of how well your whole team did, some people will try to score the most hits or hoard all the coins so that their BR record will stay perfect and won't bother helping out other team players.
    • It leaves the door open for people who want to push the cart or cap the point to do it without many people noticing. Games have been won just because one person wanted to play the game properly.

Turn Based Strategy
  • The Advance Wars series is getting there, probably symbolised best by the recent failure of Advance Wars Net's latest “Defend Your CO” tournament to catch on, because “with the recent appearance of many competent players and the acceptance of a general tier list there is no place for CO debates. They will simply turn into a coin flip of who gets the better COs.” Or, as another person put it, “this was way cooler when we didn't know what we were doing.”
  • Fire Emblem. As if the Ship To Ship Combat wasn't bad enough regarding the characters themselves, people also use statistical gains as a means of preaching the glory of their OTP.
    • It's especially bad in the fourth game, where who you pair a female unit with decides the outcome of their childrens' stats in the second half of the story. Or in one rare male case, Prince Levin, as his badass holy weapon can only be used by the son of either Fury, Sylvia or Tiltyu. Expect many lectures on why you're Doing It Wrong if you pair Levin with either of the latter two. Or Lachesis with anyone but Beowulf. Hell, if you so much as admit you were thinking of doing a pairing the fandom doesn't approve of, they'll be quick to “set you straight” and anyone who tries to point out that the pairing is actually not bad will be ignored or pushed down. A lot of FE 4 stat freaks just can't get comfortable with the idea of players making their own choices, it seems.
  • The Mega Man Battle Network games have a metagame much like the one the Pokemon games have. Check out one of the “Renowned Folder FAQs” at GameFAQs for an introduction. In each game, the hardcore PvP players have come up with some truly brilliant folders and combos — and they have little patience for anything less. Don't even mention the buster to them.
    • If it takes more than one hit to kill your opponent, or if that one hit won't hit them almost automatically, your folder sucks and you're a Scrub.
    • Star Force has it worse: Every opponent you see online will likely be using “Wave Commands,” AKA legal cheat codes. The common one is the Tribe King code. With it on, ALL ATTACKS HAVE DOUBLE POWER. Another code increases your max HP by 990 AND lets you carry more broken cards (which can be obtained with MORE CODES). WOW!

Other
  • A few tips for people who are playing Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for the first time: do not try out the online cooperative Boss Rush mode unless you have already played through the entirety of the game and obtained the best equipment available. Do not play it unless you have prepared for it ahead of time (it pulls your character from a savegame file, complete with his/her current equipment; if Charlotte last had the Owl Familiar equipped, that's all you can use). And certainly don't try it out with novelty weapons/equipment/spells equipped in an effort to find new strategies. Because the people who play that mode have beaten it many times before, and they are trying for the best time possible, and your lack of pixel-perfect gameplay will be seen as nothing more than a hindrance. (On the plus side, there is no voice or text chat, so you'll never notice that the other player is swearing at you.)
    • Do not play as Maria in Castlevania: Dracula X Chornicles / Rondo of Blood, or at least admit to doing so.
  • In the Populous: The Beginning community, there is a generally accepted set of spells and units that is “fair.” This leads exclusively to battles of numbers, as opposed to tactics.
  • In Total War series of strategy games, any tournament battles always take place on a grassy plain — a completely flat map with nothing on it, taking out a large part of the game because it's impossible to use elevation, set ambushes or hide your reserve troops in a forest, maneuver to take advantage of terrain, etc. so as to not give one player an advantage over another at the beginning of a map (e.g. the defending player starting on a hill)
  • A significant — or just vocal — portion of Star Craft II's Unpleasable Fanbase consist of these.
  • Amongst the Tetris: The Grand Master community, there are two important rules to go by: 1. If you're playing the TGM simulator Texmaster 2009, don't play Special Ti or Sudden Ti too much. 2. If you're playing on a TGM 3 machine, don't use World Rule, ever. (World Rule is the more commonly used Super Rotation System, which allows T-Spins and other tetromino acrobatics, and Classic Rule is what known as “Arika Rotation System,” the rotation rule used for the TGM series. Naturally, TGM fans dislike SRS-style Tetris, as well as the Tetris Guideline, which requires that all commercial Tetris games have SRS among other things that prevent a new TGM from ever being made again.)
  • If you play any Metal Gear game, do not - and I mean do NOT ask about post-game rankings, some of the more SHFG think that “tinkering with the Easter Eggs” and “Understanding the plot” is less important then bragging rights.

Tabletop Games

Strategy
  • Go to any Warhammer 40000 fan forum, and ask about army lists. Note that the most aggressive posts are the guys who are building their armies to play Tournament matches against Space Marine armies (loaded with six-man Las/Plas squads and as many Assault Cannons as possible) on tables with no terrain.
    • The featureless table is nearly never the case, though, as every force can benefit from terrain features to some extent, and close-combat units and armies, which are extremely common, are effectively unplayable without it. It's for this reason that all 5 editions of the 40K rulebook spend a great deal of time discussing terrain and insisting on its use.
    • Breaking News! With the dawn of the 5th Edition rule-set, this is no longer the case! It's now impossible for a six-man Space Marine squad to take any special or heavy weapons, the assault cannon is no longer quite such a Game Breaker because of the changes to the Rending rule and a couple of special characters have rules that only apply to cover. The trope still holds because the most aggressive posts will be by Stop Having Fun Guys, but I figured it might be a good idea to correct the factual errors.
    • While most players won't make a big deal about little discrepancies throughout the game, players who haggle over every detail have earned the nickname of “Rules Lawyer.” At the other end of the spectrum however, you have players who will stretch the rules as thin as they can; this troper in particular recalls one player who had expanded his Carnifex bases to nearly double their original size. While the rulebook states that models can be on a base larger than standard (for the purposes of conversions, et al), this gamer had purposefully taken the biggest bases available—ones intended for massive Forge World models—cut them in half, and attached them to his monstrous units in order to get more opposing models in base contact.
    • This troper was constantly mocked for trying to build his army in character as opposed to “playing the rules.” At that point, he stuck to the modelling side of the hobby.
  • War Hammer and War Hammer 40000 are prime wargame examples. Use certain units or make a themed army, even if they're fluffy and fun, and the hardcore grognards will generally lecture on efficiency and effectiveness then probably advise the same cookie-cutter army that other people use to win. Make a wacky paint scheme and get decried by traditionalists. Make an army with a background that doesn't strictly follow established canon (like a loyal Space Marine army that is descended from one of the Traitor Legions) and prepare to be lambasted by canon-is-God players.
    • Unless you say you're going back 10,000 years. With the Horus Heresy such a squiggly knot in history with Chaos playing some kind of supremely-advanced Risk, practically anything will go.

Card Games
  • Yu-Gi-Oh. If any game can be considered personification of this trope, this would be it. It seems like the majority of duelists who play the game are like this, netdecking like crazy, dismissing cards that aren't Too Awesome To Use as utter crap, and completely willing to rape the 10% of players who only play the game for fun. Flame wars have been started over duelists asking how to make a good Elemental Hero deck (considered So Bad Its Horrible among the elite), with both sides being chewed out as talentless, brainless hacks. Also the Seven Staples (A series of trap/spell(or magic for the purist)/effect monsters) once made even the most fearsome high attack monsters like the blue eyes white dragon useless as they would be decimated the moment they are summoned by a simple pit.
    • Hell, it's gotten so bad that even Konami has gotten into the gig; ever since the Envoy Incident, they have become more and more paranoid, either Nerfing just about any card that could've been decently powerful, flooding new sets with inflexible self-contained Theme Deck materials, and/or banning and limiting cards in original but non combat-oriented decks that prove effective or popular, essentially controlling exactly what their fans will play at any given time to what they want them to play.
      • Although in recent sets, Konami has begun releasing cards that are arguably just as broken, such as support for a sub-type that was once underused, and now has some of the most unfair cards in the game. I'm looking at you, Lonefire Blossom. Not to mention the Black Feather series, which are being released around the time of this edit, provide for some of the fastest OT Ks imaginable, being capable of swarming the field, reducing the opponent's strength from anywhere from half to zero, and powering up one's Black Feather monsters to high levels at absolutely no cost. It just goes to show that with Konami, the cards you make are either too bad to use, or to good to enjoy going up against.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh GX, the main character, Judai, will regularly remind opponents that dueling is supposed to be fun. These people will always act shocked and amazed, believing Judai to be foolish and childish. Naturally, Judai also plays the infamous Elemental Hero deck.
    • By Season 4, with the completion of his deconstruction of The Ace, Judai has become the living embodiment of Stop Having Fun Guys, unable to have fun even when he's not dueling for the fate of the world.
      • Considering the crap that he's been through over the course of the series, it's somewhat understandable.
    • Something you'll commonly hear is that decks that can't win in at most 2 turns are crap. That's kind of the epitome of “Stop having fun guys.”